Sack Smith to save the season: Leicester City’s last chance of survival
Leicester’s Premier League status is hanging by a thread. Our fortunes are out of our hands. None of us expect a miracle. But are we overlooking our one last shot at salvation?
Monday’s defeat to Liverpool has seen an air of resignation settle over the Leicester fan base. No one is crunching the numbers to see how we can survive; no one believes we’re going to get a result at St James’ Park.
Instead, we’re planning for life in the Championship. We’re arguing over whether the club’s about to go bust, about which players are going to stick around, about if we’re going to go down again next year.
Yet there is still a route to survival. We have two games left. If we won both, we’d probably survive. Four points could be enough. Even three. The problem is that, with this squad, and this manager, it feels like we won’t even score another goal.
What if I told you we didn’t have to have this squad with this manager?
It’s true that we can’t do anything about the players. But we can still do something about the man in charge.
When Dean Smith was appointed in March, he had one remit: keep Leicester in the Premier League.
Initially, Smith was something of a breath of fresh air. He talked a good game. He hauled Caglar Soyuncu off the naughty step. We fought back from a goal down to win his second game.
And then…it’s kind of been a disaster? For all the criticism of latter-day Brendan Rodgers, it never felt like the team wasn’t trying. Yet under Smith the ceiling has caved in. The effort bar is empty. The pivotal triple header against Leeds, Everton, and Fulham, for which he was ultimately appointed, yielded two points and one of the most catastrophic first half performances in our Premier League history.
As soon as the initial freshness wore off, he’s been exposed as having neither the motivational skill nor the tactical acumen to haul us out of the mess we buried ourselves in. His team selections are weird: Soumare and Ndidi in, Mendy out; swapping left backs every game; benching literally the most dominant aerial centre back in the league for a game against Sean Dyche.
What’s more, he’s fallen into the Rodgers trap of following every dreadful result with a series of mad utterances, the latest of which claiming that he “has the numbers” to prove his players tried really hard against Liverpool.
Smith was always a short-term solution, a man we turned to in desperation after Plan A – the one that involved doing nothing and hoping it all worked out – careered off the road against Bournemouth. Even then, he only got the job after Plan B - Graham Potter - and then, incredibly, Plan C - Jesse Marsch – hurtled into the void as well. We didn’t really want him. He was here to keep us up and nothing else.
He has unequivocally failed at that task. We all know that there are deep-rooted issues for our ineptitude that are far outside of his control. We aren’t getting relegated because of Dean Smith. But nor do we have any responsibility or loyalty to him.
If staying up is the single most important thing in the world right now, then there is one last throw of the dice available to us.
We should change the manager.
‘That would make us look ridiculous!’, I hear you cry. Under normal circumstances, perhaps it would. At this point we wouldn’t even be the first team to sack an interim this season. And, in any case, if you’re trying to avoid Leicester City embarrassing ourselves, then boy do I have some bad news for you.
We have the luxury of being in the worst possible situation we could have found ourselves in. We are now immune to pain and humiliation. The worst thing that can happen is that we get relegated. We’re going to get relegated anyway! Ha ha, you can’t hurt us!
The thornier response is: who would come in? We’ve already gone down the comically unqualified caretakers route. Who’d take the helm on a sinking ship for a week?
For starters, there are no doubts that a big potful of money can’t overcome. There’s a million pounds, a free beer and a doughnut on offer if you keep us up. It’s virtually no work. You can do whatever you want to our players, they mean nothing to us anymore. You have ten days. No holds barred.
With that issue swatted to one side, what sort of leader would we want? It has to be a pure motivator. The biggest, baddest man we can find. Someone to come in like a wrecking ball. Who would put the fear of God into our squad of wastrels and cowards. The kind of guy who likes to light a fire under the team bus just to watch it burn. We need two results, nothing else matters.
We could consider Gennaro Gattuso, Roy Keane, Slaven Bilic. But there is another. Someone else who most springs to mind. One who is, technically at least, not working at the moment. Because the Championship season has finished.
He knows the league, he knows the club, he even knows some of the players.
He’s the sort of man that strangles opponents whenever he wants, fights off wild dogs with a walking stick, who won’t think twice about calling you an ostrich if you cross the line.
We have a week to save ourselves and we need a saviour. There is only one man for the job, and that man is not Dean Smith.
If you don’t agree, then your head must be in the sand.
